Crusade

by Daniel M Ford

  Gideon sat bolt upright in his saddle, his eyes flying wide. “Allystaire! The Gravekmir. We are deceived!”

  Allystaire quickly took Ardent to the top of a small rise, easy to find in the rolling ground, looking to the east, expecting the tall silhouettes of giants to be framed against the sun.

  “Not us,” Gideon yelled. “The host! The Barons! Symod has set the Gravek on them!”

  Despite the song that ran in his veins, Allystaire felt a hard cold ball form in his stomach.

  Then it rose to his throat as the Braechsworn camp let loose a roar, and hundreds of Islandmen came boiling in a great mass of steel and rage towards him and his men.

  Anger slid down his throat and met that knot of ice in his stomach, pushed it down, shoved it away.

  “Gideon,” he snapped, “go to them, to Landen and Arontis, tell them to prepare!”

  The boy nodded and slumped in his saddle again. One of Keegan’s men, bareback on a small shaggy horse, grabbed the boy’s reins.

  “We fight back to the the camp and hope that Unseldt Harlach has found it. RIDE!”

  The knights around him didn’t need a second command. Led by Tibult, the best horseman among them, they streamed away. He turned his head and summoned his best battlefield voice, “NORBERT,” he bellowed. “FALL BACK.”

  He turned Ardent yet again and let the huge grey run towards the first oncoming branch of the enemy, and where he’d last seen Norbert loosing arrows.

  The archer-knight stood tall in the stirrups of his horse, loosing arrows still at the forward rushing Islandmen. He had let his horse range far ahead, halfway down the hill they crested to show themselves. Even Allystaire watched, no longer could he simply arc arrows into the crowd. He was close enough to pick targets, which he did.

  “NORBERT,” Allystaire yelled again, as Torvul, Gideon, and the knights distanced themselves, “FALL BACK.”

  Norbert looked back briefly, nodding, but continued to fire as he nudged his horse in a tight turn, twisting in his saddle, one way and then the other, drawing and firing faster and more smoothly than Allystaire would ever have guessed he could. Finally, with the nearest Islandmen able to haphazardly fling an axe at him, he spurred his horse and rode off, one errant missile striking the mud just a few paces behind him.

  The mud. Norbert’s mount’s hooves churned through it, kicking it up in flecks. It wasn’t good footing for fast riding. Allystaire had known that when they’d ridden out in the morning, but as he had learned, and had told many a man worried about his horse, If you wait for the perfect ground, you will wait forever.

  Still, some part of him was surprised when Norbert’s mount floundered and threw him forward out of the saddle. He landed with a heavy sound, and Allystaire knew that the breath had been driven from him. His bow was still in his hand, tightly clutched, but the arrows were on his saddle, which were on his horse, which was screaming in pain, an awful and inhuman sound, and trying to run on three legs, its left foreleg held off the ground.

  Allystaire spurred Ardent forward, knowing he could heal the horse, or failing that, the destrier could bear him and Norbert both.

  But he knew even as he charged forward, hammer in hand, that he wasn’t going to reach his knight before the Islandmen did. Ardent was fast, but he and Allystaire were dozens of yards away, and the Islandmen had all the momentum. Seeing their tormentor down upon the ground seemed to put more speed into their limbs. Two particularly fleet, or particularly eager men, axes in hand, were only steps away as it was.

  Norbert came to his feet, wrapping both hands around the bottom of his bowstave. He squared his shoulders, roared wordlessly at the oncoming men, and hefted the bow like a club. He swung it forward as the first one reached him, cracking him so hard across the jaw that the wood of the stave snapped and the Islandman whipped around, flopping lifelessly into the dirt. Norbert scrambled for the axe the man dropped and came up swinging it, putting down the second with a wild blow to his midsection, even as the knight curled away from the Islandman’s clumsy swing.

  A small trickle of Braechsworn diverted from the main group heading for Norbert, putting themselves between him and Allystaire. The paladin saw his knight overwhelmed, saw the casual butchery of the battlefield as one man took the time to run for Norbert’s horse, hacking with wild, amateur abandon at the wounded animal’s flanks and finally, mercifully, its neck.

  Allystaire swung his hammer with unthinking savagery at the men around him. Islandman heads exploded, showering their companions in blood and bone. Upraised limbs were smashed to bloody pulp. Allystaire, swinging the hammer Torvul had made for him for the first time with the Mother’s Strength upon him, felt the way the steel of the haft gave and bent, ever so slightly, with each swing.

  Ardent was a weapon unto himself, rearing up to strike with steel-shod hooves and all his weight and strength, or rocking forward in order to rear out with a rear leg, striking forward with his teeth, or simply bowling men over with his hundred-and-fifty-stone weight of muscle.

  The men who came for the paladin died, and Allystaire was able to spare a glance for Norbert. The Islandmen had swarmed over him, but they hadn’t killed him. Instead they had pummeled him with fist and flat of blade, with axe-handles and sword-pommels, and snatched up his still-struggling form. One of the two Dragon Scales leapt forward, brought his gauntleted fist down on the back of Norbert’s head, then seized his limp body and sprang away.

  Allystaire turned Ardent towards them. The destrier reared, its front hooves kicking at the air, and the paladin raised his hammer. The Islandmen didn’t come on; they closed ranks into a line, raising their weapons. Behind them, the remaining Dragon Scale spread his arms and howled.

  The paladin drew back his arm, aiming his hammer to throw. But he saw behind them the great mass of the Islandmen lurching forward.

  His arm tensed.

  Then he heard Gideon’s voice in his head, not panicked, but urgent. Allystaire! We need you.

  Letting loose a roar, he turned Ardent and let the destrier run with all his strength. The huge grey gained the hillside in a few steps, and Allystaire shut his eyes tight as he left Norbert behind, guided towards Gideon and Torvul by their beaconing presence in his mind.

  * * *

  Symod laughed as he studied the bowl, laughed as his camp emptied of Islandmen, but for the gathered bulk of the Dragon Scales.

  Behind him, he could feel Jorn fuming. Symod turned to face the berzerker headman, whose features composed themselves as soon as the Choiron’s gaze passed over him.

  “Do you question my judgment, Jorn?”

  “Battle is at hand. We should all be fighting it.”

  Symod shook his head slowly. “No. This will be a great blow, but it will not finish the paladin, nor his heresy. For that, you and your brothers will be needed.”

  “It would be the blow if we ran to the fight now.”

  “It would not,” Symod said, summoning the authority to his voice that ended the berzerker’s questions.

  Another of them came bounding forward, pushing through the mob of priests, bearing a limp form on his back.

  The berzerker—taller, less muscle-bound than the rest, but with the requisite ink scrawled over his bare chest, the clawed gauntlets over his hands—threw the body down on the ground, which was when Symod realized it was not a body, as the man coughed and started weakly to his feet. The Dragon Scale who’d deposited him launched a kick into his ribs. Symod heard the snap of bone and the man, a tall and leanly-muscled, curled his arms around himself.

  “Enough, Eyvindr,” Symod yelled as the berzerker made to kick the downed man again. The Choiron swept around the table where he stood, priests parting for him, and went to the side of the prone captive, looking down at him.

  Blood from a scalp wound had flowed freely over his face, and on one cheek there was a prominent scar.

 
“Tell me your name,” the Choiron said, letting a trickle of power flow into his voice, directing it towards the will of the man curled up at his feet.

  “Norbert,” he replied through gritted teeth.

  “Stand, Norbert,” Symod said. “Simply gaining your feet will not draw you more pain.”

  Slowly, carefully, the young man drew himself up, first going to all fours, then to his feet. He kept one hand pressed against his cracked ribs. Even with the slight stoop in his pain, Norbert nearly looked Symod in the eye.

  “What are you to the paladin, Norbert?” Symod let another trickle of his will into his voice.

  “I am of the Order of the Arm.”

  Symod resisted the urge to laugh. Such grand names they give themselves, he thought. Aloud, he said, “Then you are in the paladin’s confidence, yes? Tell me of his plans and your pain will be eased.”

  The Choiron felt his trickle of power, that should’ve bent the will of any injured and nearly broken man, rebound back upon him.

  The grim youth across from him lowered his eyes, shook his head, and mumbled a few words.

  “What was that?” Symod took a half-step closer, bringing his will to bear on the man before him again.

  “I said,” Norbert replied, whipping his head back up and meeting Symod’s gaze eye to eye, “that I will bear any burden for the Mother.”

  Symod bent more of his will upon the boy, but only felt it rebounding back upon him yet again. He had felt that only once before this day, a long time ago in a town he had since destroyed for its ruler’s insolence.

  Fury rose up in the Choiron, and he nearly drove a balled up fist into the defiant boy’s broken rib before his control reasserted itself.

  Symod smiled coldly. “If it is burdens you wish to bear, boy, then burdens you will have. Someone find a beam!” The Choiron elevated his voice just enough for that to be an order, and he didn’t even look up as he heard someone scurry to the task.

  He shoved Norbert backwards with one outstretched hand, into the arms of Eyvindr, who seized his neck in one gauntleted claw.

  “Secure the beam to his arms,” Symod said, “and put him in the center of the camp. Every day, add a stone to it. Give Norbert of the Order of the Arm all the burden he cares to bear. When he is ready to speak to us, he will. Or he will die, crushed under his own heresy.”

  The berzerker began dragging him off, which the youth didn’t seem to want to fight, his body practically gone limp.

  But they quickly realized he was just gathering himself.

  Broken rib and all, Norbert had some fight left in him. He pried his arms away from Eyvindr with a quick twist of his elbows and came for Symod. The Choiron froze in shock as the knight broke free. Norbert was long and lean and covered a surprising distance in one lunge.

  Norbert put one hand around Symod’s throat and started to squeeze before Jorn and Eyvindr both pounced upon him. The combined strength of two Dragon Scales, neither of whom treated him lightly, was too much.

  Still, Symod had felt a surprising strength as he stumbled away from the attack. He only just stopped himself from reaching for his throat, half-expecting to find the impressions of Norbert’s fingers there.

  “Start with two stones,” Symod bellowed. “Take him from my sight until he is ready to talk.”

  “The next time I see you,” Norbert shouted as they dragged him away, his heels digging furrows in the soft ground, “will be in the next world, because Allystaire will have killed you.”

  “Allystaire will fall before I do,” Symod shouted back, losing his composure, raising his fisted hands, cheeks turning red with rage. “Braech will grant me that. Braech will grant me victory. I have SEEN it in the waters. I have SEEN IT.”

  CHAPTER 49

  Ill-Suited Spears

  Landen knew herself well enough to know envy within her when she felt it. Envy of the way every eye in the company of the Barons was drawn to Arontis Innadan.

  Even so, Landen told herself, the man has a way about him. I must admit that.

  Arontis was in council with all the other Barons: Ruprecht, Loaisa, the recently arrived Unseldt, Byronn, and Landen herself. Though Arontis was the youngest of them, and the most junior in his seat, everyone deferred to him.

  “So far it’s just been rabble,” Arontis was saying, “but we’ve not faced the berzerkers yet, nor the Gravek.”

  “The giants are just walking trees,” Unseldt boomed, slapping the axe on his belt, “and Harlach makes the best lumber-men for the job. We’ll have no fear of them.”

  “I wouldn’t like to bring horses against them unless I had to,” Arontis put in. “We’ve not had the time to train them for it. If we are set upon by them, how many could your men handle?”

  Unseldt looked over his shoulder at the scores of scale-armored men who had collapsed into sleeping heaps as soon as they’d arrived and slid out of their saddles. Even now, Innadan and Damarind grooms were moving among their mounts, checking their hooves and shoes, rubbing them down. They’d not been easily treated, Landen could see.

  Better that horses should die than men, she told herself, then immediately felt ashamed.

  Landen could feel Unseldt considering his answer, rubbing the top of the handaxe at his side with the heel of his right hand.

  “Now is the time for honest answers, Baron Harlach,” Landen put in. “We are in this fight together. Boasting will avail us nothing.”

  Unseldt sighed. “I should say no more than half a score at a time, and that is if we know the bastard things are coming. What I wouldn’t give for a good company of archers. Where’s the Oyrwyn whelp?”

  “We’ve heard nothing,” Arontis said. “I think we have to assume,” the Baron went on, slowly, “that our three hundreds are as many as we shall have.”

  “And the paladin,” Loaisa said. “And his knights.” She pronounced the word with evident distaste.

  “As if he can go bestowing that title as he pleases,” Ruprecht Machoryn was quick to seize upon Loaisa’s sneer. “We shall have to have a talk with him about that when this is all said and done.”

  She knew it to be undiplomatic, but Landen couldn’t stifle the laughter that bubbled out of her. “You, Baron Machoryn, are going to have a talk with Allystaire Stillbright? You’re going to set his mind right, are you?”

  Machoryn drew himself up stiffly, his puffy cheeks reddening in anger. “And just what do you imply, Delondeur? Newly come to your seat as—”

  “I might be newly come to my seat, Ruprecht, but I am not newly come to the acquaintance of Allystaire. Believe me, I meant no insult to you, my lord Machoryn, but you must understand,” she said, spreading her hands to indicate the group of Barons, “when I say that he truly does not care what any of us think. You could try to lecture him on the finer points of titles and politics, and he will ignore you, unless there is something he wants you to do. And then he or the dwarf will find a way to get you to do it, and he doesn’t give a good Cold-damn if you agree with it.”

  Landen suddenly went silent, as she heard a voice ringing in her mind. A quick glance around the circle told her that of the others, only Arontis was hearing it as well.

  Baron, Baroness, Gideon was telling them, a trace of panic in his voice, Gravekmir and Gravekling are headed for you. They slipped around us. I thought I was drawing them away but they were directed here. I know not how. Make yourselves ready. We will join you soon as we are able.

  Landen and Arontis shared a brief look, then Landen inclined her head lightly and took half a step back. Arontis gave an almost imperceptible nod in reply, then said, “My lords, my ladies. We are soon to be attacked.”

  A babble of confused voices died as soon as it rose up when Arontis lifted his hands. “So I am told by the Will of the Mother. Lady Baroness Delondeur was as well. We have no reason to doubt him.”

  “We s
hould flee,” Ruprecht said, “move up into the mountains.”

  “Do yourself some credit, man, and remember that you are a Baron,” Unseldt Harlach spat. “In the mountains Gravek are a worse handful than on the plains. Here we can surround them, and they’ve no rocks to throw. Add to that, neither a man nor a horse, no matter how fresh or fed, can outrun Gravekmir. Our only chance is t’stand n’fight. Gather your lances. They’ll make fine spears. We all of us are footmen this day.”

  “The Thornriders will be, at any rate,” Arontis said, “but Loaisa, if your men would stay mounted, watch our flanks and the rear.”

  The Baroness and her daughter nodded and ran for their picketed mounts. Harlach turned to his men who lay scattered and exhausted on the field.

  “UP, HARLACHAN!” His grizzled old voice was a throaty roar. “GIANTS COME AND WE’LL NOT MEET THEM ON OUR BACKS.” The scale-clad men began picking themselves from the ground, cheering, raising their axes and their voices together.

  Landen found herself looking to Arontis for orders, even as she realized that Ruprecht and Telmawr were doing the same. “Let us go and tell our men,” the Baron Innadan said, “and form ourselves as much of a wall of shields and spears as we might.”

  Landen extended one hand to Arontis, and the two rulers clasped arms, gauntlet to vambrace. “Let us hope the Mother is with us,” Landen murmured.

  “She will be,” Arontis replied calmly. “Or at least Allystaire will—and that might be enough.”

  Landen swallowed the fear in her throat and pumped Arontis’s hand once more before letting go and turning on a heel to run as best she could for her own camp.

  * * *

  Allystaire let anger, and the stinging of the wind in his face, drive away the tears that came to his eyes. Even so, the image of Norbert being carried off by one of the Dragon Scales stayed with him, at least until he caught up with Torvul, Gideon, and the rest of the Order.

  The dwarf turned in his saddle as Ardent pounded up behind them at full gallop. The rest of the horses parted to allow the grey to move to their head.